Disclaimer: Unless noted otherwise, views and analysis expressed here are the author's own and based on public sources. The article is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional for investment decisions.

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What kind of country is Germany in 2026? The verdict depends on the type of person you are. Glass half empty? An aging society captivated by fatalism and heading for inexorable decline. Glass half full? A superpower finally breaking bad habits in energy, defense and bureaucracy.

Irrespective of which school of thought you subscribe to, Germany is aging fast. And that’s a good thing if you’re in the market for a quality Mittelstand business. Or two. Or more. There’s enough for everyone, since SMBs represent 56% of Germany’s $5 trillion GDP.  Over 100,000 SMBs change hands every year, at valuations that will make you blush. 

Further reading: The Rollup of Tomorrow Vol.8. EterniTeam: Germany’s Succession Saviour - one SME acquisition at a time

This brings us to the choice of cover image.

We've just wrapped up a busy week in Germany during which we hosted a networking event in Munich, attended a tech conference in Berlin, and spoke to 20+ serial acquirers and investors. Our last stop was the beautiful Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin. The palace was built in the 1740s for a Prussian king yearning for a summer residence away from the pomp of Berlin’s royal court (we get it!).

“Sans souci” means "without worries" in French. And that is our key takeaway: don't worry about Germany. This country will be fine. Instead, figure out how you can get involved in Europe’s biggest bargain sale since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

Before we dive in, a big thanks to Tengelmann Growth Partners and Aven Capital Partners, the co-hosts of our Munich Serial Acquirer Summit and the most active investors in Buy & Builds in the German-speaking part of Europe. Patrick Schaich and Frederik Brandis, you rock! 

And of course kudos to our longstanding partners Reef Pass Investors (backers of serial acquirers / HoldCos); Strada Partners (the rollup architects); Pavleta from PPHF (your Fractional CFO par excellence); and TechCredit (don't DIY debt - call Linus!). 

Read on to learn about:

As we discovered over the 3 years of writing this newsletter, people just don't just wake up and start rolling up businesses. They need inspiration, which hallmark exits like Simago in France and Repli / Ariol for Spain can provide:

<3 years, a €525M exit, 10x sponsor MOIC. We X-rayed Simago, the radiology rollup that galvanised the French rollup mania

Buscar como boss! Ariol, the deal that ignited Spain’s search fund hype

Simago's German equivalent is Arsipa: a rollup of workplace safety consultancies founded in 2020 by Felix Jander and Stefan Schmidt (pictured below). 

They had first met while at BCG. Stefan soon moved on to Dawn Capital and Felix, to a travel startup. As Felix reminisced at another RollUpEurope Summit, it wasn't long before the pair began to ideate about their own venture: 

“Being consultants, we worked in sprints…we had a list of 60-100 niche segments - including vets, speech therapists, tax advisers. It was a very iterative process. We ran 5-hour workshops with friends from Private Equity who’d give us feedback”. 

After a few weeks of running these sprints, Felix and Stefan settled on occupational safety and began to send out offer letters (100-150 in total) whilst fundraising in parallel. Arsipa closed the inaugural €10M round simultaneously with signing Acquisition #1 and having a further two targets under exclusivity. 4 years and a dozen acquisitions later, Arsipa had grown to €10M EBITDA, making it ripe for PE takeover. This duly happened in early 2025 via a sale to Warburg Pincus. 

After Arsipa, the floodgates opened. More exits followed.

In September 2025, ENTRO Service, a fire safety rollup established by Alex Preussner, Claudio Tubach and Philipp Westphal was acquired by the U.S. PE firm Levine Leichtman just months after being MBO’d from the original sponsor, Chapters Group. Belatedly, mainstream media jumped on the bandwagon: Betriebsärzte, Dachdecker, Botox-Praxen – Start-up-Investoren kapern neue Branchen

Besides Alex, Germany’s growing ranks of Independent Sponsors with multiple exits include Max-Otto Griesam and Paul Odefey (Hestia, Treysta). Max talked about his experience building two platforms simultaneously at a RollUpEurope event.

Two trends have helped solidify ETA’s perception as a compelling career path among Germany’s mid-level finance and tech talent. One was the positive newslow. The other were exit proceeds being recycled into new rollups.

In fact, this is happening all over Europe, with investors like Eros Capital (Sweden - of the Safe Life fame), Builders Associés (France) and Aven (Germany) leading the way.

Builders Associés is an “investment vehicle entirely dedicated to financing and supporting buy & build platforms in Europe”. It was founded in 2025 by the trio behind Simago: Marouane Bahri, Clement Martin and Charles-Henry Beglin.  

Mirroring this setup across the Rhine is Aven Capital Partners, a first-time fund established by Frederik Brandis (an early investor in Arsipa), Felix Jander and Jonas Diezun. Jonas is a one of the founders of Razor Group, one of the few ecommerce aggregators still standing: Rollups from Hell Vol.3 - Thrasio: ATM for the founders with an Amazon side hustle. 

Unusually for Private Equity, Aven is no stranger to sharing deal flow with Germany’s other two Buy & Build investing specialists: Vorwerk Ventures (Sacha Guenther, Marie-Sophie Ando) and Tengelmann Growth (Patrick Schaich). Both firms are affiliated with prominent family offices. Vorwerk manufactures Thermomix appliances, while Tengelmann has retail lineage.  

At the Munich event, Patrick and Frederik ticked through their underwriting criteria: